[Scons-users] SCons is only installing .lib part of SharedLibrary on Windows when target is specified

[Dan Pidcock]

On 1 February 2013 17:58, Gary Oberbrunner <garyo at oberbrunner.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Dan Pidcock <dan.pidcock at googlemail.com>

> wrote:

>> On 1 February 2013 15:33, Gary Oberbrunner <garyo at oberbrunner.com> wrote:

>> > On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Dan Pidcock

>> > <dan.pidcock at googlemail.com>

>> > wrote:

>> >>

>> >> However, looking through the --taskmastertrace output did show that

>> >> the DLL wasn't even being considered when just the application was

>> >> being built, but the .lib was being considered.

>> >

>> >

>> > This is correct behavior -- you don't need the .dll to link the .exe.

>> > Your

>> > Install should pick up both, however, and I think it is.

>> > You're using Default(), which tells SCons what to build if you don't

>> > specify

>> > any targets on the cmd line.  In your run 1, though, you do specify a

>> > target

>> > (your exe) -- so it builds only what's needed to build that target.

>> >

>> > Maybe what you want is Alias('all', ...) instead of Default(), and then

>> > say

>> > Default(Alias('all')) to build all by default?

>>

>> I think I understand: Currently what I have tells SCons to install the

>> library when no target is specified, but when I specify a target I

>> still need to tell it to install the library?

>

>

> Correct.  SCons will only build what it's told to.  Default() is only used

> when no command-line targets are specified.  And further, if there's no

> Default(), everything under the current dir is built.

>>

>>

>> How do I do the latter?

>>

>> I tried:

>> Alias('all', sampleApplicationEnv.Install(binDir, sampleApplication))

>> Default(Alias('all'))

>> in the application SConscript

>> and:

>> Alias('all', sampleLibraryEnv.Install(binDir, sampleLibrary))

>> Default(Alias('all'))

>> in the library SConscript

>> but that also only installed the .lib and not the .dll

>

>

> That should have worked.  Print out sampleLibraryEnv.Install(binDir,

> sampleLibrary)) and see if it's a list containing your dll.

> Do the printing like this:

>  stuff=sampleLibraryEnv.Install(binDir, sampleLibrary))

>  print [str(x) for x in stuff]

> because the elements of the list are Nodes, and you need to print their

> string representations.  If your DLL is in that list, then it should get

> into the alias, and thence into the default (which of course is only used if

> you don't specify a target).


Gary,

Thanks for the input. The DLL is in the list but it doesn't get into
the list of targets.

When I run SCons with default target, the list of targets passed to
the taskmaster includes the dll and the lib, in both the build and the
bin areas. When I run with the application as a target, that is the
only target (as expected), the taskmaster foes down the targets and
resolves:
build/app/app.exe is a child of the app target
bin/lib.lib is a child of build/app/app.exe
(bin/lib.lib is therefore built in build and installed in bin)
build/lib/lib.lib is a child of bin/lib.lib
build/lib/lib.dll is a child of build/lib/lib.lib
(build/lib.lib and build/lib.dll are therfore built)
However, nowhere does it decide that bin/lib.dll is a child of
anything so it never installs it.

I am now wondering if we are trying to push scons in a direction it
was never intended to be used. We have a build directory and a binary
directory.
Applications are set up with a LIBPATH pointing at the binary
directory (because the build directory includes the library name so
cannot be used for this).
Each library/application installs itself from the build directory to
the binary directory so there need only be one directory on the path.
(one concern that strikes me with this approach is controlling build
order may be problematic as it is critical to install libraries before
building anything that depends on those libraries)

I think we need to use some of the approaches in
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11571577/scons-libraries-and-sub-libraries
instead of the above to allow SCons to find the libraries that it
needs to build from so will give that a try...

Dan